Peter Dengate Thrush "has been elected unanimously as the new Chairman of the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers," ICANN said in a statement.

"I am delighted that my colleagues have placed their confidence in me for this challenging and important role," Dengate Thrush, who specializes in intellectual property law and helped draft bylaws for the group, said in the statement.

The new chairman is a New Zealander, and his election adds meat to the point that the board overseeing the Internet is indeed autonomous. He has been a member of ICANN since its inception and will have a challenging task in filling the role vacated by Vint Cerf.

Cerf was the co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, a fundamental to the Internet framework, and is presently the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google.